Jack Delemarre | Special to the 51暗网
It is often said that climate change is a tricky issue to tackle because it鈥檚 a somewhat unseen and imperceptible enemy. That may have been true a decade ago but can no longer be employed as a valid excuse. This summer, here in Canada, we experienced it in disturbing force, even from within our most populous cities. We experienced the worst, most intense and destructive wildfire season to date, scorching more than 15 million hectares. And that was one of the coolest summers we will likely experience for the rest of our lives.
That was just Canada. As a global civilization, we are experiencing raging wildfires, crippling heatwaves, harsher droughts and devastating flooding the world over. The climate refugee crisis is already underway. Tensions are rising due to water shortages, resulting in internal conflicts and civil unrest, and millions of displaced people. These are circumstances that are only going to intensify if we do not act accordingly.
And it gets worse. If the planet warms beyond two degrees (we鈥檝e reached 1.1 already, we will begin to trigger various 鈥渢ipping points.鈥� Examples: the total destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the permanent disappearance of major ice sheets, melting of Northern permafrost and the death of coral reefs. These tipping points are events from which there is no going back, and that will actually speed up global warming in devastating feedback loops.
Assuming we continue on our current trajectory of maintaining the status quo and not honouring climate initiatives such as the Paris Agreement (the IPCC鈥檚 鈥渕iddle-of-the-road鈥� estimate predicts warming of two degrees by 2050, significantly over the 1.5 target set in Paris) 鈥� by 2050, we can expect mass extinction and the total collapse of entire eco-systems on which we depend; worldwide water shortages and crop failures, and potentially billions of climate refugees with nowhere to go.
We may well see the collapse of civilization as we know it as we fight over increasingly scarce resources that must be shared between a projected population of 10 billion. This is thus a global crisis of unprecedented scale that we must act to mitigate, immediately. What kind of world is in store for us? 2050 is 27 years away. How old will you be? How old will your children be? We can forget any plans we had for a tranquil retirement. Those years will likely be the hardest of our lives.
So, what can we do? It is easy to feel despair, defeat, powerlessness. It is easy to react with denial or complacency, to think, 鈥淚 am doing my part鈥� or 鈥淭his won鈥檛 affect me.鈥� It is tempting to put on the blinders, necessary even, because we have to run off to work or go make dinner. It is easy to pass blame onto politicians and banks, striking shady deals with untouchable, villainous corporations who, as this crisis rages so visibly, continue to illegally decimate indigenous lands to lay their oil pipelines. That鈥檚 surely beyond our control?
The good news is that it isn鈥檛. First and foremost, it鈥檚 important not to give life to any feelings of shame or judgement. Granted, we are all responsible, even more so in the West, but none of us chose to be born into these inherently unsustainable societies. What鈥檚 done is done - what matters is how we move forward. If you, like many of us, are concerned, terrified even, of what is happening to our planet and society, I hereby call upon you to take action.
Some further good news is that millions of people have already started and have made it very easy for us to find out exactly what we can do and how to go about it. And the greatest news is that as it turns out, it's real simple stuff. To name but a few of the most impactful: buy local and buy second hand. Switch to green electricity, insulate your home, install an electric heat pump. Eat less meat and more plants. Don鈥檛 book that flight this year if you don鈥檛 have to. Don鈥檛 go for that drive if you don鈥檛 have to: take the bus, train or ride a bike. Move your money to credit unions that invest in green initiatives. Check out local activism events 鈥� turns out they鈥檙e everywhere. Vote at every level for political candidates that champion environmental policies and write to your MPs urging them to tackle this 鈥� they listen to us because we keep them in office.
Most of these actions are very possible for the vast majority of us living in developed nations, they just seem so trivial and futile that we tend to nonchalantly push them aside. But the reality is that it鈥檚 these small individual actions that, if done en masse, will facilitate the societal, economic and political overhaul that we need.
Even if it鈥檚 just one of the above, one seemingly insignificant change: if you have the power to do it, do it. Take a stand. We must fight for our world, for our children鈥檚 world. At the very least, we have to be able to say we tried.
Jack Delemarre is an up-and-coming writer with a passion for environmental activism.
